Ethos Consultancy concludes fieldwork for 5th Annual Service Quality Bank Benchmarking Study

Ethos' trained researchers have conducting a total of 1350 banking enquiries - 675 bank branch visits, 405 telephone enquiries and 270 website enquiries.

Concentrating on all three key customer contact methods, this study will reveal which banks across the UAE are exceeding customer expectations and breaking through the status quo in terms of delivering superior levels of customer service.

The UAE banking industry is fast-moving and highly competitive, customers are savvy and the market place can be an unforgiving environment. Banks' customer service must perform at the highest levels so as to create sustainable value for their customers. A great customer experience can dramatically improve customer loyalty as well as serve as a draw for new customers, making a customer service orientated culture a very powerful tool. BBS 2009 will reveal how UAE retail banks are using service quality as a building block for accelerating growth and sustaining long-term success.

The purpose of this annual benchmarking study is to provide the UAE banking industry with service quality market intelligence.

"Benchmarking is the practice of being humble enough to admit that someone else is better at something; and being wise enough to learn how to match or even surpass them at it. Our annual Bank Benchmarking Study offers independent, unbiased results which if used to their maximum potential can change the way a bank does business."

said Robert Keay, Managing Director, Ethos Consultancy.

Every year, five service quality category winners are identified based on performance. Best Overall Bank, Best International Bank, Best Islamic Bank, Best Website Response Performance and Best Call Centre Performance. Ethos recently spoke to some of last years' category winners to find out what maintenance and improvement strategies have been implemented since last year's Bank Benchmarking Study results were released to the public early November, 2008.

All of last year's winners have been busy setting service quality objectives, measuring their customer's satisfaction and most importantly, acting on their customer's responses and improvement suggestions.

Emirates Islamic Bank, winners of 2008 Best Islamic Bank, Service Quality Manager, Wael Rateb commented "I always tell my staff that service will bring sales, not sales will bring service. We have placed considerable effort and resource towards understanding exactly what our customers require to be completely satisfied. During the last 12 months Emirates Islamic Bank has opened new branches, increased the number of ATM‟s across the UAE and completely revamped our internal call center team with extensive training and new customer friendly processes". Wael calls his bank's service approach "Wow service" and is extremely confident that Emirates Islamic Bank will move up this year's ranking from third place overall to claim top position as Best Overall Bank.

This won't be an easy task considering RAKBANK has held its position as Best Overall Bank for the last three years. With such a fantastic record, the bank is keen is to raise the bar of service every year and has spared no effort in ensuring that it consistently exceeds customer expectations through superior service. RAKBANK's General Manager, Graham Honeybill explains that "Service has always been and continues to be the core of RAKBANK culture. We believe that our constant emphasis on service and the amount of time, effort and resources that go into enhancing it is exceptional within the UAE banking industry." "Greater efforts have been made this year to listen to the voice of the customer through our extensive customer satisfaction surveys," he continues. "All feedback received from customers has been analyzed and, where feasible, implemented." Since last year's study, RAKBANK has added Internet banking to its list of services, hence creating an opportunity to win Best Website Performance in this year's BBS, a title taken last year by First Gulf Bank. Graham also pointed out that training efforts have been intensified this year to further enhance skills, while the bank's staff continues to be motivated through a 'Reward and Recognition' Program that recognizes and applauds those who excel in service delivery.

Richard Hextall, Head of Personal Banking for Lloyds TSB Middle East, winners of Best International Bank in 2008, explained they too have been extremely active in their customer service initiatives during 2009. "Not only do we take the results of Ethos' annual Bank Benchmarking Study very seriously, we also conduct our own customer service satisfaction surveys with our customers twice a year. Following our most recent extensive customer survey we have made some exciting branch improvements including a re-organisation of our main banking hall in Jumeirah. Improvements involved the extension of our cashier area from 4 to 6 counters, as well as the introduction of an improved ticketed queuing system within the customer service and account manager teams. This has assisted us with a more efficient flow of customers as well as ensuring customers see the most appropriate person for assistance."

Mr. Faisal Aqil General Manager, Retail Banking, Emirates Islamic Bank stated, "Ensuring service excellence is an integral part of our vision, therefore we ensure that the customer is at the center of all that we do. As a testimony of this commitment, Emirates Islamic Bank continues to lead the way in financial services by introducing innovative products and services. Furthermore, we also continue to rapidly increase our reach to the customers by spreading our distribution network so that our customers continue to be delighted with us in every critical aspect and thus enjoy their banking experience. And to maintain our top of the notch customer centric approach and service leadership, we have developed extensive customer service training programs for our staff at all our customer interaction touch points. Ethos service quality benchmarking study will continue to be a leading indicator for us besides our internal measures for service quality."

When asked what customer service challenges were faced during 2009, as expected each bank tackled their own unique issues such as attempting to increase the satisfaction of customers opening new accounts and making sure each customer service representative delivers a consistent greeting and closing. However, it was especially pleasing to hear the economic crisis has in some instances played a positive role towards helping these banks along their journey to customer service excellence. "We've used this period as an opportunity to assess our current processes and train our staff", said Wael Rateb, Head of Service Quality, Emirates Islamic Bank.

The need to increase communication and reassure customers during a recession was clearly noted from discussions with last year's winners. "During an economic crisis, customers need more reassurance and frequent communication from their banks. That is why we ensured that we have actively maintained direct communication with our customers since the onset of the crisis and maintained our high visibility in the market." Graham Honeybill, General Manager, RAKBANK.

Ethos Consultancy plans to release a free summary of this year's Bank Benchmarking Results to the public via their website in early November. Full reports will be available on request.